The Haunting of Cabin Green

by April A. Taylor

One of PopSugar's Most Chilling Horror Books of 2018.
One of Inquisitr's Best Horror Books of 2018.
One of Ranker's 2018's Scariest Horror Books.
One of BoredPanda's 7 Books That Scared Me Half to Death.
#1 Amazon Best-Seller in U.S. Horror New Releases.

Welcome to Cabin Green, where the setting is familiar, but the story is completely unexpected. A terrifying slow-burn that combines the literary Gothic prose of Shirley Jackson, Ambrose Bierce, & Thomas Tryon with the "what's really real?" aspects of The Shining. Cabin Green has also been compared to the devastation of Hereditary and the socially progressive, ambiguous approach of Paul Tremblay.

Going to Cabin Green alone after the death of his fiancée was Ben's first mistake. His second mistake was tempting fate by saying, "There's no such thing as an evil building." Now he's caught in a nightmare of his own making deep in the woods of Northern Michigan. Even worse, a family history of mental illness makes it impossible for him to know if the ghosts haunting the cabin are real or all in his head.

This modern Gothic horror story takes the reader directly into Ben's hellish experience. Is he crazy? Is a ghost haunting him? The only way to find out is to make it to the end of this deep, dark thrill ride that's filled with more twists than a roller coaster.

AWARDS:
TOP VOTE GETTER: Best Horror/Suspense - The Kindle Book Review (TKBR) Reader's Choice Awards 2018.
RUNNER-UP: Best Overall Book of 2018 - TKBR Reader's Choice Awards
SEMIFINALIST: TKBR's 2018 Jury Award for Best Horror/Suspense

Content Warning: Contains gore, sex, profanity, & deeply disturbing psychological themes. This isn't a fluffy horror story; it's true, descriptive Gothic horror that's emblematic of the destructive nature of grief & also contains societal/political/religious critiques. For mature readers only.

Inspired by a real-life, spooky green cabin in Northern Michigan that's so well-hidden it can't be found by GPS! This book also contains a disturbing section that was inspired by real-life events.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Gothic, Paranormal, Ghosts, Audiobook, Thriller

278 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 17, 2018

About the author

April A. Taylor is an award-winning, multi-genre author and dark art photographer. Her debut novel, The Haunting of Cabin Green, was featured on:

Popsugar's '13 Most Chilling Horror Books of 2018.'

Inquisitr's 'Best Horror Books of 2018.'

Ranker's '2018's Scariest Horror Books.'

BoredPanda's '7 Books That Scared Me Half to Death.'

BLGM's 'Best Gothic Horror Books.'

Sinkhole: A Horror Story and Missing in Michigan received 5-star ratings from Readers' Favorite. Corvo Hollows was named a 5-Star Must Read Book by Reedsy.

Sinkhole: A Horror Story was featured on:

Grit Daily's 'Horror Continues to Thrive with the Scariest Books of 2019'

Medium.com's 'Celebrate Halloween with These Macabre and Progressive Horror Books'

BuzzFeed Community's '7 New Horror Books That Will Actually Scare You'

The Haunting of Cabin Green was the #1 Amazon best seller in the U.S. New Horror Releases category for three straight weeks. It went on to become a #1 Best-Seller in Gothic, Ghosts, U.S. Horror, and LGBT Horror. Additionally, it was the Top Vote-Getter in the Horror/Suspense category of The Kindle Book Review's 2018 Reader's Choice Awards.

April is a proud member of the Horror Writer's Association. She lives in Michigan with the love of her life and their two cats. If her life was a cartoon, she'd be Lisa Simpson.

Reviews

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has a lot of negative reviews but I loved it. It felt messy, paranoid, felt like I followed the characters in his head while he slowly got deeper and deeper i madness. Very messy writing and audiobook but fit the story

[Base Mint · Rating 1 out of 5]

So... I have a lot that I feel about this book.

I picked this book up because it was in the Kindle Unlimited program and the description said that it was the Best Selling #1 LGBT Horror novel on Amazon.

This book is about a straight man, grieving the loss of his straight fiancee. It is not an LGBT Horror book, and it shouldn't be marketed as one. But we'll put that aside.

This book is supposed to be about grief, but instead, it's a cyclical spiral of confusion, and very little character growth. With an odd and jumbled beginning of the book, it sets you up for an explosive and exciting ending. However, the real ending falls very flat and is not only far from satisfying, it's jarring and sudden. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and feels more like the author wanted to just finish the book and be done with it, than actually wrapping up the loose ends of the plot.

The rest of this review delves into spoilers and will be marked as such. Read at your own peril, I have a lot to say.

This book starts slowly. The pace stays slow throughout the entire book. Ben arrives at Cabin Green without a plan, without supplies for a stay there, and feeling sad and unsure of his plan to isolate himself at a place he used to take joy in. Very quickly, odd things start to happen. Nothing small, like knocking on the walls, or anything else typical of a ghostly horror. Instead, he starts having vivid hallucinations that end in him dying, and then waking up with unexplained injuries and no memory of the event.

This happens so many times, that the entire first 130 pages of the book is just an on going pattern of something weird happening, Ben dying, and then waking up with no recollection of it, and hand waving the entire thing away.

These events are rather fantastical, to the point of being humorous, not scary. The ways he dies include: burning to death in a house fire, only to wake up with a small burn on his hand and no memory of the fire. Being drowned by a seaweed monster under the dock. Only to wake up with seaweed in his mouth, and no memory of what happened.

At one point, he finds a pile of bones in the lake, convinces himself that if he calls the police, they'll disturb the local ecosystem and upset the animals, and then decides to retrieve and bury them to hide the crime instead. Whatever crime that may have been, I suppose. He dives in the middle of the night, only to find they aren't in the lake anymore. When he gets back to the cabin, he finds them on his bed. He then decides to bury them anyways, despite thinking a serial killer is trying to intimidate him. He passes out, wakes up, can't remember if the bones were real, and decides to UNbury them. When he can't find the bones, he freaks out more, and tries to bury himself ALIVE. He then passes out again, and wakes up with yet again, no memories.

It is then that the skeleton of his dead fiance strangles him to death and throws him out of the hole before burying herself.

And yet again, he wakes up with no memory of dying, or the skeleton, or why there's a hole. And he handwaves this off once more, and returns to the cabin.

After that, we find out that the puzzle he has on the mantle is haunted. He sees a woman being eaten by a shark inside of it.

We are then told that the fourth major thunderstorm of the book has started, and that he has PTSD from the rain, after the accident that killed his fiancee. But that the storm is so entertaining, he forgets he has PTSD. This is... just frustrating. Why mention he has PTSD just so you can say he's conveniently forgotten he has it, as if that's how mental health and recovery works?

The thunderstorm turns into a giant black skeleton that tries to eat him, makes him deaf, and he defecates in his pants. This fact isn't dealt with. Instead, he eats lunch, washes his hands but no other part of himself, and sit down to meditate.

In this meditation, he has vivid hallucinations of himself falling to the ground, liquifying, and being eaten by vultures. This is this sixth death in the first half of the book.

Once more he loses his memories of it and dismisses what he does remember as a bad dream.

After this, he regains his hearing, and watches a version of himself in the Haunted Puzzle jump to his death. This causes the real him to plunge into the ocean, and drown on the kitchen floor. His seventh death. But not quite! Because at the last second a GHOST SHARK EATS HIM.

And once more?

He wakes up, covered in seawater and blood, and can't remember what happened.

Only then does he deal with his soiled clothes. It was so utterly ridiculous that I couldn't take almost 3 chapters of this book serious because he's just walking around with crap in his pants.

He's died 8 times, and each time he's woken up with no memory of what happened, and has just continued on like nothing is wrong, and he's being mildly inconvenienced by missing entire days from his memory.

This is when the book takes a sharp turn. Before this point, everything was over the top, ridiculous and hard to believe.

From this point on, it's just depressing and frustratingly maudlin.

The ghost locks Ben in the cabin, starving him, and torturing him for weeks on end. There are scenes describing how he's so starved that time no longer works properly. He is told he has to watch his fiancee die in the puzzle, and accept his fault in it, or he will be forced to suffer this prison forever. The ghost won't let him die.

Suddenly, there is an odd fascination with Ben, and sex. He has sex with his dead fiancee's ghost. He has a fantasy of sexually assaulting her corpse at her funeral. They describe that he has many wet dreams. There's ten full pages talking about this, in an increasingly uncomfortable way. And once again, it's just discarded, with no more mention of it.

It's here that we have one of the most tone deaf descriptions I've seen in a long time. Ben tries to kill himself, and the ghost puts the blood back into his body, and heals the wounds. However, he leaves scars on Ben's arms. The author describes Ben in this moment, as horribly emaciated, with a shaved head, locked in a small cell waiting for death, with the Ghost's mark of wrongdoing on his arm.

This description is then quickly walked past, for more talk of the ghost trying to get Ben to admit he's at fault for his fiancee's death.

It keeps him starved, to the point that crawling six inches is enough to knock Ben into unconsciousness. And finally, he watches the scene in the puzzle.

It's here we learn that Ben killed his fiancee. He was tired and driving too fast to meet her. He hydroplaned, and hits her car, killing her. He admits it was his fault, and then Kyra appears to him as a ghost, and tells him it wasn't. That he's done this all to himself. He nailed the windows shut, he broke the doorknob off, he purposely didn't buy food, and that he's killing himself. This was all a hallucination.

Except in the very next paragraph, we find out that it's not. There's an evil entity that made Ben's father appear to abuse his mother, then killed them both and collected their souls, and now it's torturing and breaking Ben to steal his soul.

Ben dies.

And the end of the book, Doug, Ben's best friend, who has graced the book for perhaps 15 pages in total, arrives at the cabin. Ben is nowhere to be found, nor is there any trace of him. And when he goes to town to ask if anyone has seen Ben, the evil ghost tells Doug to go sleep in the cabin, thus starting the cycle again.

It's sudden, it arrives out of nowhere, and it not only contradicts what was said a few paragraphs before, but it ends the book suddenly and with such a disappointing, dull ending, that I was physically angered, and convinced there was a final chapter missing.

This book wasted my time. There was nothing to be gained from reading this. The entire thing was a frustrating cycle that led nowhere, with little to no character growth, and a disappointing, sudden ending, that left the story feeling incomplete and unresolved.

[Rachael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't like writing negative reviews of books, as I can only imagine how disheartening it must be for the author. However in this case I can barely find a good thing to say about it. Firstly the writing style is infuriating. It reads like a teenager's first attempt at a novel, very stilted and unnatural. The author tries to compensate for what I assume is a lack of confidence in her own prose, by the gratuitous overuse of complicated (unnecessarily so) vocabulary, and by peppering the story with similes. Apparently nothing can be as it is, everything is compared as if it is something else. Whilst without doubt a story can flourish with such literary flair, to have every other sentence finish in such a way makes the dialogue bulky and slow, and pretty tiresome.

My next point of contention here is with the main character. Escaping the tragedy of the loss of his fiancé a mere week before their wedding day by retreating to an isolated cabin in the woods, I'm sure we should pity Ben. Initially I did, but his constant moping, whining and general "woe is me" attitude quickly began to grate. As the story progresses and strange things begin to happen I became more frustrated by his bury my head in the sand attitude, and poor decision making that led him down a increasingly worsening path. In the end end he didn't care if death embraced him, and neither did I. There are a few periphery characters, but I didn't find any of them particularly enjoyable or relatable. I primarily put this down to the stilted and unnatural dialogue already mentioned, and a very two dimensional way of storytelling.

As for the actual storyline, what a waste. There is an interesting premise at heart, and I enjoyed the jumbled chronology. Jumping between different points in the past and the present helped keep things fresh and interesting. But ultimately I think what should have been only hinted and suggested at for true horror to creep in was dealt with too heavy handedly, and what could have been explored to capitalise on the terror wasn't explained in any way that made sense. It was a double miss. Instead we were left with a supernatural tale that was messy, hard to follow, and dull. I was frustrated at the story by about a third of the way in, but I persevered in the hope the odd events would be cleared, I'm really not a quitter even with poor literacy. Just as I thought we would receive some explanation as to the point of the preceding pages, the book stopped. Dead, as it were. The cherry on the highly unsatisfactory cake. I imagine we are meant to be left savouring for more. Me personally, too many points of the story were given a little bit of attention, but not enough to bring any sense to the tale. For example, the backstory of his parents, which I'm sure was meant to add to the feeling of horror and doom, is tickled over in just a few pages, just enough so that we know there should be a point there, but with no development. The ending was pointless and frustrating, and I really wish I hadn't bothered making the effort to get through the rest of it.

[Diem Shepard · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ordinarily, out of kindness to the author and shame that I had wasted my time, I wouldn't even admit to having read this. But it comes with such praise that I can not imagine what these other people were thinking.

"One of PopSugar's Most Chilling Horror Books of 2018.
One of Inquisitr's Best Horror Books of 2018.
One of Ranker's 2018's Scariest Horror Books.
One of BoredPanda's 7 Books That Scared Me Half to Death.
#1 Amazon Best-Seller in U.S. Horror New Releases."

Seriously? The lesson to be learned here, I guess, is to pay no attention to PopSugar, Inquisitr, Ranker, or BoredPanda's lists.

I literally groaned aloud as the cliches piled up and the infelicitous language writhed around to choke the life out of the story, just as the ivy crawled around the eponymous Cabin Green. I *was* laughing by the end, but I don't think that was the author's intention.

I have never given such a nasty review, but I feel foolish for falling for the promotion and guilty for contributing to its #1 status on Amazon.

[Kate Darnton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow was this dark, but in a good way. I can't stop thinking about the ending and all of the different threads the author wove together. I'm going to have to read it again to make sure I picked up on all of the connections. Well written, truly horrific and it made me cry a couple of times. This might be too dark/depressing for some, but if you like dark horror, I recommend it. Steer clear if you don't like swearing and sex in books, though.

[N.M. McGregor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very interesting psychological thriller that takes place in a cabin in the woods. In reminded me of a Stephen King novel. This was a steady paced story, and then you get slammed with something that happens which is so bizarre you can only imagine the difficulty for the character. This book was interesting from beginning to end and Taylor did a fantastic job on her detail of the eerie experiences that become Ben's reality. If you enjoy horror don't miss out on this story!

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Received an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book will challenge its readers, and that is a good thing. You will not guess where she is going when you read this book.

You are taken on a nightmarish, uncomfortable journey and you soon realize you can’t count on the standard rules of storytelling. The author is brave enough to push the envelope and leave you not even guessing the end!

[GracieKat · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited to read The Haunting of Cabin Green because Northern Michigan is an area that doesn't get utilized very often. Which is a damn shame as the woods and areas can be very creepy. I like the cover, it's pretty and about what you would expect from a story with 'The Haunting' in the name.

I think the author does show promise. There is a story in there. Unfortunately you have to wade through way too many words to get there. Everything is overly described. There are fifty words used when ten would do just as well. The dialogue is clunky. Real people just don't talk like that. Everything is phrased awkwardly. Every social issue mentioned is shoved into your face so hard it gets annoying. Don't get me wrong, social issues belong in books. They need to be mentioned and talked about. However, it's a lot better reading when they flow naturally from the story rather than wedged in with a shoe-horn.

The plot flowed in fits and starts. It does do a pretty good job of making you wonder whether what Ben is seeing is real or not. And since it's a huge part of the book I'm not going to spoil it for you guys. One of the issues I had with the end is an explanation given for the way a certain character acted. It seemed like it was supposed to clear up that character and make them a bit more sympathetic but it seemed like too easy of an 'out'.

The Haunting of Cabin Green has a lot of good parts but they're buried under word avalanches. The characters are either backwoods redneck stereotypes or so perfect they don't feel real at all. None of them are even moderately easy to relate to. It also falls victim to a common failure when it comes to books set in Michigan. Everything outside of the 'city regions' are redneck hicks. It's a common stereotype, I was just hoping that this book would avoid it.

In all I think if this book were proofread a bit and streamlined it would make for a pretty good book. It just needs a bit of trimming down to flow better.

Received from the author for review consideration

[Jacqueline Olson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seriously one of the worst books I’ve ever read. It reminded me of some of my high school friends’ writing when we were 15. Loose plot line that seemed to want to incorporate so many twists and curves. And why is this the second book I’ve recently read having a couple have a car crash against one another? I think what bothered me the most about this book is that follows the outline to the movie 1408 with John Cusack. Man experiences loss, doesn't believe in the supernatural, goes to a place to be alone (or to write about it), shenanigans happen, in the movie there's a picture and in the book a puzzle that come to life, demon eventually has man kill himself. Same story plotline. ugh.

[Alexandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry I couldnt do it pretty cover but yeah... Sorry

[Jason Reed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bleak (on purpose, I think?), but with good black humor mixed in. Some original scares. I liked it.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

(DEUTSCH WEITER UNTEN)


Phew, I don’t even know exactly how to rate this.
The basic idea of the story was quite cool and so were the events that happened. It could have been really creepy and unpleasant, but unfortunately the writing style and the way the story was told didn’t pick me up at all.

It all felt so far away and not like it was creeping me out of my pants.



(DEUTSCH)


Puh, ich weiß nicht mal genau, wie ich das bewerten soll.
Die Grundidee der Story war schon ganz cool und die Ereignisse, die geschehen sind auch. Es hätte richtig gruselig und unangenehm sein können, aber leider hat mich der Schreibstil und die Art und Weise, wie die Geschichte erzählt wurde, so überhaupt nicht abgeholt.

Es hat sich alles so weit weg angefühlt und nicht so, als würde es mich aus der Hose creepen.

[Neil D'Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first read of 2019. The fact that I could finish reading it despite a busy schedule is itself testimony to the fact that the book works for the most part. The story hooks you and you get invested with the characters, especially the character of Ben (the protagonist) and Kyra. It's an interesting touch that Kyra belongs to a Hindu family, which provides a glimpse of some of their traditions. I live in India myself, and it was good to see that most of the traditions were depicted correctly by the author. I also must make a mention of the character of Doug, the gay friend of the protagonist. It is to the author's credit that this character hasn't been reduced to a caricature stereotype.

The language is quite simple for a horror novel, and I mean that as a compliment. It does get rambling and telling in places, but it keeps you going.

What didn't work for me was the length of the novel. The book is a very long read, and at times it does get boring and you want the characters to just get on with it. Also, for the large part, it is just Ben alone in Cabin Green, where nothing much happens, except that he gets haunted in various ways. In these parts, I found the drama to be sorely lacking. The Haunting of Cabin Green could have actually served much better as a short story or a novella at best.

People have already remarked about the author propagating her beliefs through the narrative. I felt this was off-putting too. At certain points, I was rolling my eyes, especially as I felt the author just wanted to make a comment about every issue — be it racialism or inter-caste marriages or domestic violence or homosexuality or even smoking! Yes, the character just smokes and smokes and there are too many words spent on it than one would care to read.

But, if you keep those nags aside, the story is good and holds up for the most part. The large number of good reviews are well-deserved.

Also, I'd like to make a note that the author has definitely made an effort in writing this book. That, in itself, is laudable.

[Heather Gadd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm so conflicted about this book and ultimately I feel it had good bones but the author could stand to hone her craft a bit more. It made me feel a range of emotions which lends to a good voice, but it reads like someone trying too hard to write a good novel. The word choice and sentence structure were amateur, some of the similes and metaphors were far reaching, and at times, the characters using profanity sounded more like a middle schooler trying to fit in with the cool kids than a natural, verbal reaction to a situation. The word choice made me think that the author was writing with the thesaurus open on the table, ready to insert a larger, smarter sounding word when a simpler, everyday adjective would have been just as effective.

The suspense was real but some of the scenes were murky, making them difficult to imagine and caused me to skim through to get to the endgame of the vision. The twists could have been fleshed out a bit more and needed more of a backstory. The love story was saccharin and the grief portion was played out ad nauseum.

It kept my interest long enough to continue reading and kept my curiosity through the end, but it was overall a disappointment as it unraveled quickly and fell flat.

[Trisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

"it’s time for a new collection. Let the games begin."

I just. . .this one was a tough read. I never felt pulled in and so this just felt like a slog through words and descriptions. It felt over described or, maybe, overly wordy. . . Eh, either way, this was graphic and gory but had so much going on, it was more of a distraction than a good horror story. It just wasn't my thing.

[Alaina]

rtc

[Brian Bowyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The strengths of this novel are evident from the beginning. The author has a mastery of atmosphere and setting that pulled me in immediately. The swift and yet poetic prose somehow seems both modern and vintage simultaneously. A haunting tale of madness and soul-shattering grief, this novel is a feast of evocative and exquisite gothic horror. Highly recommended!

[Karen Ingalls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ben's fiancee has recently died in a car accident and he is overcome with remorse. He goes to "Cabin Green" to heal from this tragedy. The author does an excellent job of moving from one time frame to the next. The reader learns about Ben's dysfunctional family, his mother's mental illness, his poor relationship with his father, and the deep love for Kyra who is his fiancee.
The horror scenes are well described, but there were too many such scenes. I also found enough spelling or grammar issues that I needed to give the book 4 stars.

[Holly C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some people like fine wine with complex notes. Others like cheap beer. The same is true of literature; you either want something deep and allegorical, or you're happy with a quick, easy read.

There's little about this book that's easy. As long as you're looking beneath the surface and allowing yourself to feel its rich emotional content, that is. Gothic fiction is, by its very definition, meant to probe beneath the surface of sanity. I'm not sure I've ever encountered a gothic novel that's this deep in the muck of human grief, though.

This definitely isn't for the basic reading crowd. This is more for people who actually understand what gothic fiction is and love it (note: it's not today's watered down ghost stories that sometimes try to pass themselves off as gothic). It's also more likely to attract the attention of the introspective House of Leaves crowd instead of the "I love jump scares" crowd.

[Patty U. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. I didn't understand what all was going on, but it made sense at the end. That said I didn't like the ending. I realize it is a horror story, and some have weird endings. For it being mainly one person in the story it did keep your interest. Ben arrives at a cabin he is part owner in. He is grieving the death of his fiancee and hopes this trip will help him get past it. While at the cabin he reflects back on his life. Then strange things start to happen.

[Siobhan (Bookish Vibes) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audio version of this book and the creepy, slow-burn story had me anxious to find out what was going to happen.

After his wife passes away in an accident, Ben decides to retreat to the secluded Cabin Green to clear his head and just get away from everyone for a while. Here he has many strange and increasingly terrifying and unexplainable encounters. The story kept me guessing trying to work out if the encounters are real or all in Ben's head. The ending was also different to what I was expecting and I always like when that happens!

[Lilith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wtf was that ending 😱🤯

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to admit that I was afraid this was going to be another supernatural/paranormal romance book. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it's just not my reading preference. Instead we get a book from an author who pulls no punches in presenting a haunting tale of a man consumed by guilt after the death of his fiance. The plight of main character Ben reminded me a lot of the main character in "The Machinist" in that both allow their guilt to consume them so strongly. I highly recommend this book.

[Karen Travis-Eaddy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, terrifying & moving tale of love & grief.

A tale of love lost, terror of the mind, and ghostly haunting, this book takes you on a harrowing journey that keeps you guessing to the end. A great read!

[Joe Bogue · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Haunting of Cabin Green is a very surprising novel, that offers more than the description on the book jacket leads the reader to expect. I always go into anything described as 'modern Gothic' fiction with quite a bit of skepticism. Often times, novels and films bearing this description have a few Gothic elements, such as a spooky castle or elements of romance. Yet then they devolve into either generic horror or a different horror genre entirely, such as a haunting theme or creature feature. That was not the case for The Haunting of Cabin Green, as it is truly an example of Gothic horror set in our modern world.

My favorite thing about this novel is that the Gothic elements and tension start out at almost mundane levels before slowly ratcheting up to a terrifying peak. This novel offers a different take on the romantic element needed for a story to qualify as Gothic fiction. The cabin isn't as creepy as it could be, but the supernatural element certainly is. The hauntings featured in this novel are unique and chilling. Author April A. Taylor does a tremendous job of keeping the reader guessing by inserting strange visions, precedence for potential mental health issues, possible red herrings, and palatable emotion into the protagonist's history and experiences in the cabin.

The journey to the story's climax gets pretty bleak. Normally upon nearing the end of horror book, I would be enlivened to reach the ending. With Cabin Green, I was actually anxious, almost nervous, to reach the conclusion. I urged myself to read faster so that I could reach the literary climax, not just because I wanted to know how things would turn out, but also just so I could relax. This speaks volumes to the levels of tension and suspense Taylor is able to achieve in this novel. Much like riding a roller coaster, once I was over the peak my anxiety melted away and I was filled with relief and exhilaration.

This novel isn't for everyone, even possibly some fans of horror fiction. It's filled with as much despair and desolation as it is with horror. There are also several graphic depictions of sex that might turn some readers away. But for those who can steel their reserve and make it to the end, The Haunting of Cabin Green is very much worth the read. It is a great work of Gothic horror and one of the most suspenseful thrillers I've read this year.

[Linda Watkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot of this novel revolves around a young man, Ben, whose fiancé, Kyra, has died unexpectedly. How she dies is not revealed until the end of the novel, but it is easy for the reader to make the assumption that it was some sort of tragic accident which Ben may, or may not, have been involved in. Consumed by grief, Ben eschews a planned trip to Virginia Beach and, instead, travels to Cabin Green, a remote cabin somewhere in the wilds of Michigan.
Once there, he wallows in his grief, as strange things begin to occur.

This novel has an interesting premise and, some of the occult happenings that Ben experiences are downright scary. Best example of this is the “vulture” episode. However, as a reader, from the get-go, I couldn’t sympathize or identify with him. As a character, I found him just plain irritating. Also, some of his experiences at Cabin Green seemed to go on forever and I found myself skimming through them rather than being enthralled by them.

I was also disappointed in the ending – things were only half-explained and the “ghost’s” motivation remained a mystery.

All in all, not a bad horror novel, but it could have been so much better.

I received a free copy of this novel as a member of the Horror Writers Association.

[Stephanie Shimerdla · Rating 2 out of 5]

I almost stopped reading this book at least five times in the course of it's consumption. I wish I had. I kept reading because of all the positive reviews about the story, so I figured that even though the writing was not really great (sorry, April!), that the story would be worth it in the end. It was interesting, which is the only reason for two stars rather than one. But not worth it to get there. I kept going in hope of the saving grace of an intriguing twist, which, alas, did not come. (Maybe we weren't supposed to have picked up on the hint about Ben's role in the accident?)

April, find an editor that will be a bit more heavy handed and you'll do just fine. The dialogue was unrealistic and the writing was clunky and long-winded at times, but that's nothing that couldn't be fixed by a good editor! Your story was fine and I'd have enjoyed it as a perfectly adequate and entertaining horror if it wasn't for the rest. Best of luck!

[Melanie Page · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm 14% through and I give up. The audio book narrator has the most boring voice I think I've ever listened to, so I catch myself zoning out for 10-15 seconds. Not only that, but the writing is full of cliches. Attached at the hip, most beautiful woman in the world though not like a model, love at first sight, etc. Something will happen, and the main character, Ben, will think, "I wonder why X just happened?" Why is he giving voice to what I'm thinking? He's supposed to be a living person.

Also, as a native Michigander, the author fails to capture the beauty of Northern Michigan. I'm not convinced when there is nary a mention of a deer, or deer carcass. Ben running over a piece of wood, or whatever, which made his car do THREE full circles (????) could have easily been a deer or raccoon. Mention the ferns, the birch, the maple. A morel. The huge likelihood that there are streams or rivers everywhere. The squirrels, the pine needles. ANYTHING.

[Horror DNA · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve thought long and hard on how to begin this review. Do I praise the author’s understanding of the grief process? Or perhaps complain about how claustrophobic the story can get? I’ve written a couple of openings, but each one fell flat. A book as unique as The Haunting of Cabin Green needs a unique opening, but I’ve got nothing. So let’s just cut to the chase shall we?

The Haunting of Cabin Green centers on Ben, who has just lost his fiancée, Kyra, and goes to Cabin Green in an effort to move with his life. Author April A. Taylor depicts the grieving process amazingly well and I find myself actually grieving Kyra as much as Ben does.

You can read Jennifer's full review at Horror DNA by clicking here.

[Jennifer Sartain · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book was not well written. The writing seemed so forced. I feel like the author was trying way too hard to make herself sound intelligent. So many repetitive words and phrases. The ending gives no answers and no satisfaction. I am not sure why I even finished the book. There was no authentic feeling flow to the story, no character building, no build up to exciting moments.

The book was not well written. The writing seemed so forced. I feel like the author was trying way too hard to make herself sound intelligent. So many repetitive words and phrases. The ending gives no answers and no satisfaction. I am not sure why I even finished the book. There was no authentic feeling flow to the story, no character building, no build up to exciting moments.